A thread for anyone already sick to the backteeth of their relatives

[AnnaMagnani]

My DM is spending Christmas with my and DH. This is lovely as she has been v poorly and has been too unwell to visit for 2 years.

However she is currently on a mission to remind me why I had 3 years of fucking therapy to remain on speaking terms with her.

'You have put on weight'
'Don't swear' - I wasn't but I might start
'That's not a small piece of cake'
'Whatever happened to my shy quiet girl?'
'I might go home if this is what you are like' - please do
'I'm only teasing, you are so sensitive'

DH joined in. We had words after she went to bed and he has stopped on pain of divorce.

Today she has announced that she would like a nice slice of the pork we had yesterday in a roll while I am cooking Christmas dinner. Unfortunately I am not a mindreader and the pork is now in the freezer.

'Oh, but you are so disorganized I assumed it would be there. Where is my nice pork now?'
She got hurt when I pointed out I wasn't disorganized. DH is now in my corner.

Anyone else want to share?

I’m biting my tongue and have a tight smile firmly in place. At my in-laws, they have full time carers who they have given the day off to because ‘well Betty’s here, she can help us’. It’s important to DH and the kids to be here but I’m one more shitty comment off exploding. FIL has already passed judgement on lunch because I’m ‘so disorganised’ - I see them twice a year fuck knows how he’s come to that conclusion. He’s ordering me around like his personal skivvy. DH is doing a great job of deflecting him whilst I knock up a four course meal and I’m already on the gin.

Ohhhh, and he’s bitching off about how much money we’ve spent on food, I mean the mean old goat will eat it all obviously but he can’t resist snarking about what he he sees as my wanton extravagance.

I'd just go home and let DH get on with it! Pick him up later if necessary!

That's to Betty btw!

We are also organizing to meet up with DH's relatives. We do this every year as none of the others can be arsed to initiate it. Booked to see SIL and MIL. Sorted.

BIL, who left to his own devices would be fixing Christmas meet up in July has now tried to muscle in on plans and join in. No fucking way. You can organize your own trip to see your own bloody mother matey.

[santa] to all the Christmas tonguebiters out there. Solidarity sisters!

I love them dearly but am just sick of hosting every bloody year. Desperately plotting how to have a year off BUT
Dsis flat too small
DM flat too small
Dbro and family have to come and see DM
DM’s husband works over christmas so they can’t travel to Dbro’s
Dbro well off but pays school fees so can’t afford a hotel
Dsis and DM on low incomes
DM and DMIL not getting any younger

Ddad probably feels like me as he can’t travel to us so he has to host us all after Christmas.
I need to be less grinchy but I bloody hate Christmas and hate being around people and have been off work with stress recently and burst into tears three times before 7am this morning. (Thanks that was cathartic). DH and dds are fab though and dsis helping a lot.

DM is sucking all of the fun out of Xmas, as she does every year. She’s not a bad person but has significant problems with anxiety (that she won’t get treated) that we all have suffer with her. So joyless, is it too early for wine?

I had to spend the day with the in laws yesterday. Fine apart from sister in law and her two kids. They scream for whatever ds is playing with. Shriek at every little thing and sil shrieks and yells at her husband and everyone that doesn't do exactly as her two kids want.

I'm over it from yesterday, have to deal with it today too. It ruins my Christmas every year.

I organised Xmas Day myself to ensure that:

A: We’re not stuck with in laws all day, should be about three hours (meal out).

B: restaurant is only a walk up the road to in laws /dbils so they only have to walk there and back, shouldn’t need a lift (don’t fucking dare).

C: We have to leave early anyway because dh is working tomorrow, and seeing as I’m the driver, I want a beer at a sensible time.

All organised. So why the hell am I still dreading it, apart from the usual inane MIL conversation about the buses being late all week?
Why is my stomach in knots?

OK, we have opened presents and I take it all back as DM has stormed it with patchwork mats she has made for me and a knitted Fairisle jumper.

On the other hand DH decided to go off list with Portmeirion placemats and coasters. Coasters FFS. It's like he doesn't even know me

I smiled through gritted teeth and said I liked the pattern while wondering why I was opening his mother's presents from the 1980s.

Am off to stuff the fuck out of a duck's arse.

God. M

Oops posted too soon!
My parents are passing bitchy comments on the neighbours. To be since we arrived they comment on everyone else who does things differently to them. They won't come to us ever.
DM had asked what DP and I would like for Xmas (we went practical and asked for some kitchen stuff and glasses which we need as money is tight thought saves us buying them) but they didn't get us those. If we knew they wouldn't we could have asked FIL. Sounds ungrateful I know but why ask?

At MILS. Cold and parsimonious.
No snacks. I brought snacks. Fucking DH for some unknown reason LEFT them at BILs. I've been criticised for doing 2 eggs per person at breakfast. This is profilgate and the reason no one of my generation has a mortgage. (We have a mortgage). There is nothing but the telly so MIL can remark on how ugly and fat people are and side eye me for being ugly and fat the cunt
Leaving for BILs soon. At least there'll be chocolate.

We’re all round my parents. My sister is still in bed (she’s 37, didn’t go out last night).
She just told me to leave her alone when I asked her twice to get up and help.
Fuck this shit.

My in laws gave my husband a voucher for an outdoor adventure type thing, based several hundred miles away. I'm 8 and half months pregnant, my husband can't drive due to medical issues and the voucher has to be used in the next six months. So they've given me a full day's driving, plus standing about in the cold with a newborn for Christmas.

Fucking brilliant.

MIL and FIL with us, FIL fine, plus my DM and DF I asked both sets of parents to arrive at 11.15 MIL and FIL were ringing the doorbell before 9AM.

DH is helping me do dinner, but I have sent him to go and play with the children because he is not being helpful today!

My DF is in garden with FIL talking and looking at the garden .

DM and MIL are chatting about a lot of shite. They both wondered out loud earlier perhaps "

if bugaboo will give up her very demanding career in 2019 and not farm the children out to these child carers, who are expensive and do not know what they are doing. Plus it isn't fair that DH has to have the children on his own when bugaboo is away for work is it? "

Fuck off DM and MIL!

Then DM moaning about all the food that we have and " how much did that cost?" Whilst taking a huge handful of chocolates. MIL chimes in

" Well FIL and I could not do on a just a pension. It is hard being a pensioner..." They are rolling in money!

Merry Christmas!

Joy of SIL and BIL later on!

Well , my mother invited herself despite being told there was no space, ds1 is on leave and home with his GF, so dd has been ousted to the sofa bed/her boyfriend's
She had an invite to my brother's but no, SIL is Not Her Friend and didn't personally ask her nicely so she feels unwanted and apparently she is too old to go on the train in spite of the fact that she regularly travels up and down, scotland to dorset.
She cried in the car one day when I said there was to be no invite as we were full to overflowing, and said the time she had not been invited to mine was the worst day ever. She actually declined to come because she did not want to leave "Her Bungalow" in the weather in case "something" happened. SOOO she was not not invited at all. She was told not to moan about being lonely as it was her choice, only now she has rewritten that Christmas as the one she was not invited anywhere as no one wanted her and she does't want to be a burden

Anyway I put my foot down and said if she did come we had no time to pick her up, it's a three ring circus with many intervals and interludes if we go to pick her up, a three hour trip there and a three hour trip back cannot be managed in a day because of the "shall I bring this?" "Oh i have to pack that" "just have to speak to neighbourx/y/z/a/b/c..."
This was in September, so not like she didnt have tme to organise any number of lovely alternatives.
She thinks my brother and I don't chat much, but we keep our heads together with regards to her and her nonsense, and anyway she came to us ON THE BLOODY TRAIN.

She has spent the time so far with a sucked lemon face, moaning that the cats do not love her, moaning about everything and nothing, ripping into every one we know about their terrible manners and then had the cheek to hog all the christmas dinner dishes ensuring she had an entire plateful before most of us had even pulled our crackers.
Miss Manners my bloody arse!
We have had a small fall out about her casual DailyMail racism, which she does seem to have taken on board, but we'll see.

Roll on Friday!! 68hours to go!

Have emerged from the kitchen to discover no-one has laid the table.

'Well, we didn't know when you wanted it' claims DM.

I've been in there 2 fucking hours, there was a clue it would be sometime this afternoon. Anyway, foods up in 15 minutes and DH and DM are now scrabbling about.

The afternoon has been punctuated by DM's cries of 'she won't let me help her' - no, because it is a very small kitchen where most of the stuff is broken and if you don't use it properly you fuse the electrics, and 'do you really think we will eat that much?' - again no, I have meal planned for bubble and squeak, cold meats etc etc.

At least I have made her own up that she reads the Daily Mail and to stop pretending she doesn't.

I love my in-laws but I've snuck away as the micromanaging of the present opening is giving me a headache. 'No DC, you can't have another yet, show me the one you just opened, is it a bear? Isn't that lovely?' DC is 1, just let him open all the presents, it's less annoying than the screaming. Plus at this rate it will be bed time before we finish.

Had Christmas dinner prepared, the full works.
DM having sneakily eaten a large bag of toffee popcorn picks at her meal as if convinced I was poisoning her. After moving food about her plate a bit, and the men leaving most of it. She declares 'i liked that cauliflower cheese stuff you did'
She is narked because she believes I cannot cook and was wishing for a culinary disaster to report with glee to my DB.
She's now snoring loudly 😠😠

Me!!!

I'm at my in laws and DNiece who is 2.5 years old, WHINES ALL DAY LONG.. I'm tired, I'm hungry, I want to watch octonauts, I want crackers.. and on and on it goes

It doesn't help that SIL&BIL never ever says no and gives in to her constantly. I have not heard the word No come out of their mouth once all holiday

MIL has just announced she is going to stay to watch strictly. Dd and ds have gone to their rooms, i’ve crept away to hide for a bit...

Just finished dinner and tidying up my kitchen to be told No we’ll not watch Strictly now we’ll watch it later. She took it upon herself to reorder my washroom and throw out bags without asking. DS and DD were lectured about putting too much on their plates to the point that DS (9) started to apologise profusely throughout Christmas dinner. (DS is a nervous child who we are trying to build confidence). My DH has been wound up all day and I am seeking peace upstairs as my lovely niece who usually buffers has been throwing up all night and is ill in bed. 36 more hrs and counting .........,

for everyone!